


steal my heart and hold my tongue

by blackbird blackbird (assassinactual)



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Identity Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 14:22:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18918790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/assassinactual/pseuds/blackbird%20blackbird
Summary: “Is it true?”The question hangs between them. For a moment, everything just seems to stop.





	steal my heart and hold my tongue

**Author's Note:**

> tbh honestly I am like not caught up on the show at all so I really have approximately zero context for how things may or may not have happened but I just had this idea. title from 'til kingdom come.

“Is it true?”

The question hangs between them. For a moment, everything just seems to stop, even Lena’s racing thoughts analyzing every interaction between them over the last three years. Kara stands there, frozen. It’s clear she knows exactly what Lena is talking about, but it’s like she just can’t process it.

Then her face starts shifting, in that way she does. She runs through a whole gamut of expressions, settling on something like utter devastation. She’s rooted to the spot, staring at Lena. She makes a jerky motion like she’s reaching out to Lena, then thinks better of it.

This is not what Lena expected.

She expected Kara to be surprised, yes. But that she’d quickly come back with an excuse, a justification. A good one, probably. Still, Lena would’ve raged at her, thrown every time she lied back at her. Question their friendship, if Kara ever really cared about her (Lena knows she does. Oh, she knows.) the thrown her out. After, she’d probably drink too much whisky, cry herself to sleep, and hope she has the strength not to be the one to call first.

But this…

Kara takes half a step closer. The look on her face something like horror now. And not the ‘ _evil Luthor just discovered my secret_ ’ sort of horror.

“You didn’t know?” Kara breathes, barely audible, and everything stops all over again.

This, she never considered, not even for a moment. A thousand different reasons for Kara not to tell her, even Kara _not_ being Supergirl.

“But… I never said anything,” she says.

“I thought it was just – ” Kara makes a sort of wavy, twisting gesture with her hand “ – a _thing_ for us.”

Lena shakes her head dumbly. Kara, apparently just as shocked as she is, doesn’t say anything. Lena manages to make herself ask “How long?”

“Since… since we met, I guess.” Kara stumbles a bit at first, but finally finds her voice. “I mean, I kinda thought you might’ve known even before from Lex. But then I blurted out that I flew to your office, then there was that gala.” She stops, but must see how Lena is trying to add all this up, because she continues. “I mean, I eventually sorta stopped really trying to hide it with you. And just, the way you talked me. Kind of cheeky and flirty.”

“Because I was flirting with you,” Lena blurts out.

“Well, yeah.” Lena (for the moment, at least) skips over being surprised that Kara _knew_ and goes straight to accepting it. “But, it was like there always something unsaid. Like a secret we both knew, or a private joke. You’d talk like that with both of us – both of me – I thought…”

She trails off and Lena says, almost automatically, “Sorry.”

Kara recoils immediately. “No! No, no. Don’t apologize. Rao. No. Oh, Lena.” Kara hesitates again, briefly, before closing the gap between them. With tears in her eyes, she takes Lena’s hand. Lena feels herself start to tear a little too, just seeing Kara like this. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You must – I never thought – I’m sorry. Please, Lena. Hurting you is the last thing I’d ever want.”

Lena pulls one hand from Kara’s grasp. She reaches up for Kara’s cheek, wiping away her tears and wordlessly soothing her. “I just, I still don’t understand.”

Kara sniffles a little, and smiles sadly at Lena.

“I guess I just saw what I wanted to see and got carried away. Not that I didn’t want to tell you!” She says it forcefully, then follows much more softly with: “I want to tell you everything. It’s – I felt – feel safe with you. Even though we didn’t talk about it, I felt like I didn’t have to put on _Kara Danvers_ around you. Everyone else in my life that’s important to me knows and sometimes _Supergirl_ is like this shadow hanging over everything. I thought that you were just like, giving me space.”

Finally, it all starts to come together for Lena. Not just the inconsistencies and similarities and Kara’s slip-ups, but all of it. Things that had confused her, things she’d willfully overlooked, things she’d dismissed as just little idiosyncrasies of Kara’s.

“Do you want to pretend we never had this conversation?”

“No! No, it’s out now, there’s no point pretending anymore.” She laughs tearfully, then pulls Lena closer and buries her face against her neck. So quiet that Lena almost needs superhearing to catch it, she asks: “Do you hate me?”

“Darling, I could never hate you,” Lena responds, a soft murmur that no one but Kara could ever hear.

Still pressed against her, Kara lets out a quiet sob. Lena just holds her. They stand there like that for some time, the only sound Lena can hear Kara’s ragged breath on her neck. She takes the opportunity to wipe at her own tears with the hand that isn’t crushed between them, then tries to guide them over to her couch.

Kara mistakes it for her trying to away and holds on tighter. “I’m not ever letting you go now.”

Lena laughs, letting Kara hold her.

“Kara?” Lena asks after a while. Kara doesn’t answer at first, and Lena almost thinks she’s fallen asleep standing up, but then she hums quietly. “You said you knew I was flirting with you? All this time?”

“I did?”

“You did.”

She mumbles a Kryptonian curse that Lena doesn’t quite catch, then pulls back just enough to look at her.

“Do you not…” Lena starts asking, unable to read her face.

“Oh no, I do! I really, really do.” She sighs, and her gaze drops. “Well, part of it was the _Supergirl_ thing and I thought it would mean that we would have to actually talk about that.” She stops, and chews on her bottom lip. Lena squeezes her hand. “You were so lonely, then. You didn’t really have anyone here except me and Supergirl, kinda, and I guess I didn’t want to risk upsetting that.”

“Oh, Kara.”

Lena disentangles herself, then wraps her arms around Kara properly. Almost mirroring their earlier position, Lena sinks into her. Lena sinks into her, comfortable with the familiar feeling of Kara’s too-warm body against hers.

Kara, naturally, ruins it.

“So, I mean, you still want to – “

“Yes,” Lena says with a laugh. She can feel Kara’s smile as she turns her head to nuzzle against Lena. Then, the floor drops out from under them. “Um, Kara?”

“Oh, shoot,” Kara says, looking down and realizing she’s floating a foot off Lena’s living room floor. “I’ll just set us down.”

“No, wait.” Lena gets her footing on top of Kara’s feet, then relaxes the hold she had instinctually tightened on her. “I trust you.”

“Yeah?”

“Always.”


End file.
